Forward bodies of infantry continually had been feeling out the German positions in Fismes and on Saturday afternoon, August 3rd, reconnaissance parties from the 168th Infantry, formerly the Third Iowa National Guard, of the Rainbow Division, entered the southern edge of the town.
They clung there desperately until the next day, but the Germans deluged them with gas, which hung close because of the river and the heavy atmosphere, and it was deemed inadvisable for the small force to remain. Their reconnaissance had been completed and they were ordered to return to their lines. The information they brought back aided the staff materially in planning the general attack.
The Germans had placed heavy guns on the crests of hills one or two kilometers north of the river, from which they poured in a flanking fire.
A few hours after the return of the men of the 168th, the massed French and American batteries turned loose with a racket that seemed to rend the universe.
The Germans had been dropping shells intermittently since daylight, but even this spasmodic firing stopped entirely under the hurricane of shrapnel, high explosive and gas shells from the Allied artillery, which swept the town, the river crossings and the country to the north. It was a case of "keep your head down, Fritzie boy," or lose it.
The artillery preparation was not protracted. After an hour or so, it steadied down into a rolling barrage and the first wave of attackers went over. The 32d and 42d (Rainbow) Divisions, exhausted, had been brought out of the front line and Pennsylvania's iron men slipped into place.
It fell to the fortune of the 112th Infantry to lead the advance on Fismes and, supported though it was by other regiments and by tremendous artillery fire, it was the 112th Pennsylvania that actually took Fismes.
[Illustration: © _Committee on Public Information._
Pennsylvania Guardsmen attacking a German position in the Soissons-Rheims pocket. A bombing squad leads to blow up the German wire and open the way for the infantry waves which are seen following close, headed for the holes in the wire network.]
There was the usual harassing fire from enemy machine guns and snipers, especially to the east, but these were silenced after a time and the 112th romped into the southern edge of the town. Then ensued a repetition, on a larger scale, of the street and house fighting that had been experienced before in other villages and towns.